You can't search us - we're Americans!

The new Afghan Parliament met for its first session the other day, in what will hopefully be an advance for democracy in the country. But the opening wasn't without incident. US Vice-President Dick Cheney was there to attend, and had a little trouble with security...

After Mr Cheney entered the parliament chaotic scenes erupted when Afghan security guards insisted on searching the Americans' bags - including a briefcase containing America's secret nuclear bomb codes. An angry White House official ordered the guards to "open the gate now", an AP reporter said. "These are the vice-president's military aides."

The Afghans, who were trained by the US security contractor Dyncorps, allowed the aides through but insisted on a thorough body search of the rest of the party.

Who do these Afghans think they are, wanting to search Americans in their own country? Don't they know who's in charge there?

As for the potato, you'd have expected the White House to have made proper arrangements beforehand to avoid this sort of scene, rather than simply showing up and expecting the locals (who are justifiably worried about someone sneaking a bomb into their legislature) to obey their every whim.